2-year-old girl found outside in cold dies

Akron police are investigating how a 2-year-old girl died after her mother found the toddler unresponsive in the cold Friday afternoon on a porch.

Police were called to the Willow Run Apartments in Ellet about 3:30 p.m. Friday after the mother discovered the girl, police said. Temperatures in Akron on Friday ranged between 12 and 19 degrees, according to Accu­Weather.

The toddler was taken to Akron Children’s Hospital where she later died.

Police are withholding the girl’s name until her family can be notified.

The Summit County Medical Examiner’s Office will conduct an autopsy to determine how the child died.

It’s not clear whether the child lived at the apartments on Doty Drive or was there visiting.

The 76 apartments are managed by the Akron Metropolitan Housing Authority and sit south of Waterloo Road between Hilbish Avenue and Massillon Road.

They were built in 1981, and the porches appear to be little more than overhangs over doorways.

Records show that police have been to the particular apartment where the 2-year-old was found one other time during the past 12 months.

In August, a couple in their early 20s who lived there reported that someone flattened four tires of the 2007 Chevrolet Impala the woman drove.

The woman told police she was sure a neighbor did it because he had threatened to slash her tires over money he said she owed him, a police report said.